OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 37 ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 05 : Issue 37 Today's Topics: #1 Re: [OH-FOOT] Fw: Tid Bits - part ["Joyce Grady" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-id: <00f501c5365c$5453db00$b1986247@computer> Subject: Re: [OH-FOOT] Fw: Tid Bits - part 16 B Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit This is wonderful history, and thank you for taking the time to put it out there for everyone to enjoy. Do you have any information on the Shaker group that was in the Western Reserve. What is now called Shaker Heights? Thanks Joy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ohio Archives EV1" To: Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 6:31 PM Subject: [OH-FOOT] Fw: Tid Bits - part 16 B > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Darlene & Kathi kelley" > To: > Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 7:52 PM > Subject: Tid Bits - part 16 B > > > > Contributed for use in > USGenWeb Archives > by Darlene E. Kelley > March 8. 2005 > > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > Historical Collections of Ohio > And Then They Went West > Know Your Ohio > by Darlene E. Kelley > Tid Bits - part 16 B. > > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > Akron; The Impulse of the New Born City > [ part 2 ] > > In meticulous New England fashion, the Connecticut land company surveyed > the land in checkerboard pattern, quite different from Virginia's plan. > Sections called ranges were laid out a mile square, and thirty-six of > these ranges, six miles each way, constituted a township. Then it held a > drawing among its stockholders. Whether they drew good land or bad was a > matter of chance. > > But it was one thing to own a great tract of distant land and quite > another to get people to live on it. Connecticut men were no timid > stay-at-homes, as their exploration of the seven seas bear witness. But > they were seafaring and commercial folk. > > A few came out fairly early to the accessible sections. Moses Cleaveland > of Hartford ( 1754-1806 ), Yale graduate and one of the original > stockholders of the land company, drew a stretch of land along Lake Erie > just where the Cuyahoga River breaks the shore line to create a harbor. > Being a surveyor, like many men of his day, including George Washington, > he realized the value of the property. > > Cleaveland organized a group of fifty-two men. followed the two lakes by > boat until July 4,1796, he came to a river he assumed was the Cuyahoga, > and went ashore to celebrate. He discovered a few days later that he had > stopped at the wrong river, the Cuyahoga lying twenty miles further > west. Naming the first river the Chagrin, in acknowledgement of his > mistake, he went on to lay the foundation of the town which bears his > name today. > That done, he went back to Connecticut, and never lived in his town. > > The legend is that a printer on an early newspaper changed the name of > the town, as it was one letter too long to fit a headline, so he left > out the first " a," which he thought was not necessary anyhow-- and > everyone decided it was a good idea, so Cleaveland became Cleveland. > > Ohio's first city grew slowly. It was incorporated in 1814, but did not > break into the census figures until 1830, when it showed a population of > 1,076 people. John Young started the town of Youngstown in 1799, but it > did not amount to anything until the first rolling mill and blast > furnace was started in 1845/46. An Indian stockade was built on the site > of Toledo in 1800 an a townsite laid out in 1807, but the town was not > incorporated > until 1843. By contrast, Dayton was incorporated in 1805, and Columbus > became the state capital in 1812. > > A few people went inland from Cleveland, picking out the better > sections. Deacon David Hudson came out from Bradford, Connecticut, in > 1799 to start the town of Hudson; Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge from > Litchfield in 1806 to start the town bearing his name, and Jonathan Hale > from Glastonbury in 1810 to start the town of Bath. > > The oddy-named town of Twinsburg, just north of Hudson, honors Moses and > Aaron > Wilcox, ( 1771-1828 ), of Killingsworth, Connecticut, who were not only > identical twins, but married sisters, had the same number of children, > owned their property in common, fell ill of the same disease, died the > same day, and were buried in the same gave. > > These twins were among several proprietors of the Twinsburg area, and > when they came west in 1823, at the age of fifty-two, they found the > sttlement already started. The first comer had named it Millsville, for > himself. Moses and Aaron donated six acres of land for the towns square > which every Akron- Cleveland traveller remembers, and spent twenty > dollars in cash to improve it, on the condition that the settlement > change its name. > > Nobody came to Akron, though Captain Joseph Hart, a Revolutionary > soldier, took up the tract in 1807 at Middlebury on the Little Cuyahoga > two miles east, and a Major Miner Spicer joined him three years later, > took up a 260 acre section in the woods where Buchtel College was built > afterwards. There were a few Indians still around, but they made no > trouble and disappeared after the War of 1812. Using their New England > training, the settlers built dams across the Cuyahoga River at > Peninsula, Bath, and one at Middlebury. > > There were enough settlers around to rally to the colors during the > second war with England. Legend has it that three of the vessels for > Perry's squadron, the Portage, the Porcupine and the Hornet, were built > at Bath ad floated down the Cuyahoga River to the lake. When Sam Lane > came to town in 1835, he found many people who claimed they heard the > cannonadng in the battle of Lake Erie, and Bath would celebrate the > anniversary of that engagement for many years. > > Warren, near the Pennsylvania line, was an important town. It was the > county seat of Trumbull County which comprised the entire Reserve, and > was named for Governor Jonathan of Connecticut. Warren is of interest to > Akron because it was there that Simon Perkins, a young surveyor from > Litchfield, Connecticut, came in 1798 with his bride and stayed on as > agent for the land company. > > An aggressive personality, who won the rank of brigadier general in the > war of 1812 with special commendation from Willam Henry Harrison for > leadership and courage, Simon Perkins bought a considerable tract of > land near Warren in 1804, and three years later picked up a thousand > acres, fifty miles to the west, which was sold for taxes. > > General Perkins knew this tract because he had surveyed it. It was > uneven, rough, swampy in places, and was crossed by two valleys. He had > no special use for it, but the taxes amounted to only a little more than > four dollars a year; something one could buy and forget about. > > He would not know for another eighteen years how good a buy he had made. > > It has been said that the easiest way to make money is to have your > grandfather buy a farm in what later will be the business center of an > important city. General Perkins did just this. The property picked up > for taxes is today the heart of downtown Akron. > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > The Beginning of Akron > > Akron was born in 1825 with the building of the Ohio Canal. > > The surveyors found, as the Indians had before them, that the easiest > way to get from lake Erie to the Ohio River was to follow the two river > valleys and cross over at the narrowest point. That was at Akron, where > eight miles separated them. > > The red man left the Cuyahoga valley five miles from town, followeda > ridge high enough to be safe from ambush, reached the summit at West > Market Street and Portage Path, where the Indian statue now stands. The > elevation there was 1,100 feet, the highest in Akron, and the second > highest point in Ohio. It was an exhausting climb however for men > burdened with canoes and tepees. > > The surveyors did nor worry about a steep climb. They looked for the > lowest elevation since that meant fewer locks. So the canal route > followed the main Cuyahoga valley to the edge of town, then went several > miles up the Little Cuyahoga to the edge of the downtown district. There > it climbed the steep sides of the valley with a series of locks like > stair steps, and reached the summit a Exchange Street, a stone's throw > from the Mayflower Hotel and the Goodrich factory. > The elevation there was only 960 feet lower than the Indian portage. > > Once on top, the canal could stop for breath. The seven-mile level lay > ahead, and it would be that far before it would need another lock, out > in the Portage Lakes district near the headwaters of the Tuscarawas. > > This route took the canal directly through the present business district > paralleling Main Street, the city's major business Thoroughfare. Lock > Nine is back of the Portage Hotel, Lock Five behind the big bank > building. Lock One is at the summit at Exchange Street, the other Locks > being numbered north and south from there across the state. > > Water will not run uphill, but the Ohio Canal, starting at an elevation > of 575 feet above sea-level at Lake Erie, had to climb 395 feet in the > first thirty miles. However, it made 200 feet of that climb in the two > mile stretch through Akron. Anything that stops the movement of > transportation creates a business opportunity at that point. A canal > boat stop is longer than others. A boat moves into the lock, waits while > the sluice gates close behind it, waits again while the water rises to > the elevation of the next section when the gates ahead are opened. Each > lock stopped traffic, but twenty one stops in two miles meant that it > would take a canal boat at least six hours to pass through Akron. > > A blind man could see that a town would grow up there. No passenger is > going to sit on the deck all that time if there was anything to be done > ashore. A town built there could collect a toll from every passenger who > came through. Once the canals were in operation, horse drawn carriages > would meet the boats at Lock one and Lock Twenty one, whisk the > passengers to the Empire House or the Cascade, where they could spend > half a day buying, selling, trading, eating drinking, or having a game > of cards in the back room before it was time to overtake the boat at the > far side of town. > > But there was no town. Settlers were pouring in from New England by this > time, all but decimating some Connecticut towns, but they had not come > to Akron. Middlebury, two miles away, was a town of 400 people, had four > grist mills, a blast furnace, two sawmills, several inns, half a dozen > stores. It was on the stage coach line from Warren, which ran along the > crest of the divide, continued down Exchange Street near Lock One and on > up Perkins Hill, where a second tavern had gone up overlooking the whole > section where John Brown of Harper's Ferry lived later. > > The rest of the present city was almost entirely wilderness. A few hardy > pioneers, scattered over thousands of acres, lived in log cabins clinked > with clay, cooked corn meal and hominy, Johnnycake and wild game in > copper or cast iron kettles hanging in te fireplace, made their own > clothes out of deerskin, planted corn, carried their grain in to the > grist mills at Middlebury, where they bought calico at a dollar a yard, > or could get whiskey for a dollar a gallon-- though the storekeepers > usually kept a bottle on the counter for their customers. > > The canal would change all that; create a town in this unfavorable > location. But a town had to be built. Three men started the town; a > general, a judge, and a doctor. > All were born in Connecticut; General Simon Perkins at Lisbon in 1771, > Dr. Eliakim Crosby at Litchfield in 1779, and Judge Leicester King near > Hartford in 1789. They were men of great force and foresight. > > Dr. Crosby had gone west as a young man, studied medicine in Buffalo, > practiced in Canada, but returned to serve in the United States Army in > the War of 1812, forfeiting his Canadian property by so doing. He was > forty one years old whe he came to Middlebury in 1820. There he found > things more interesting than dispensing pills and delivering babies. He > put his bag away and went into business. > > The town sawmill was not going to well, so he bought it and made money > on it. Then he bought the blast furnace and started making plows. After > that he moved three-quarters of a mile upstream, where Goodyear plant > now is, threw a bigger dam across the river and built a two-story grist > mill, the largest in the section. Everything he touched prospered. > > Judge King, who lived at Warren, had come west in 1817. A strong > character and a natural leader, he would serve four years in the Ohio > senate, seven years on the bench, be nominated for vice-president of the > United States on the anti-slavery ticket, though withdrawing in favor of > Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts. He sent his sons to college at > Trinity and Harvard, saw one of them married to a grand-niece of George > Washington. Another son married Dr. Crosby's third daughter, and > curiously enough the Judge himself, later on in life as a wdower, would > marry her sister, Calista, widow of the Charles Howard for whom Howard > Street was named. > > General Perkins. we have already met. > He was forty six at this time, the leading citizen of Warren and looked > like a prosperous English country squire. > > He mounted his horse one morning in 1825 for a fifty mile ride west. > Word had come in that the canal surveyors were driving stakes squarely > across his proerty, the despised 1,000 acres he had picked up eighteen > years earlier for taxes; for four dollars and one cent, to be exact. > > He thought the situation through very carefully on the way over. The > Canal would bring in settlers, homes, stores. > Everyone who had built a home on his land, every baby who was born there > would enhance the value of the rest of his property. He could hold the > state for a fancy price for the right-of-way, or he could donate the > land, persuade his neighbors to do likewise, give the undertaking every > possible assistance. > > On his arrival he looked up two men who also owned property along the > route. Paul Williams, who had come out to Middlebury with Major Spicer > in 1810, got the point quickly and agreed to donate his land, but > Charles Brown, a carpenter from North Stonington, Connecticut, could not > see it. > > " It's all right for you to give away your land," he said. " You're a > rich man and can afford it. The State will have to pay me a fair price > for my property it gets from me." > > " You'll get your money back, " said Perkins. " The canal will make the > rest of your property that much more valuable." > > " That could be a long time off." said the carpenter. "If you feel so > generous, why don't you buy my land? Then you can do whatever you want > to do with it." > > Perkins reflected. " I do not want to buy, but I might trade," he said. > " I own forty-five acres in the Little Cuyahoga valley, or I've got 100 > acres farther out, or for that matter, there's a 300 acre tract over in > the next county." > > " I'll take the forty-five acres close in, " said Brown. > > The next thing was to lay out the town. Not many men have had the > experience of owning a large tract of land where circumstances make it > certain that many people will soon want to live. > > General Perkins laid out the town around Lock One, where the stage coach > line crossed, planned a business section in the center, and a 300 > residential lots surrounding it. He included a town square a hundred > yards away such as he was familiar with in New England. > > The square is still there, a rather drab and smoky park, with a comfort > station on it and Perkins School and the Children's Hospital facing it, > but none of Akron's present citizens think of it as the center of the > city. Later generations forgot all about city centers in the New England > sense, but did have the grace to call this block Perkins Square. > > General Perkins wondered about a name for the town he proposed to build. > Remembering its topography he fell back on his Greek, and decided on > Akron, meaning a high place. > > Some years later when Akron found itself on the high road of the nation, > and hard drinking, smooth talking gamblers, and light fingered gentry in > beaver hats and velvet breeches rode the canal boats , taking toll of > the unwary, inspiring Sam'l Lane to start a newspaper to crusade against > the scalawags, a friend twitted the General with a classical pun. > > " In naming your town Akron." he said , "did you not mean Acheron, a > river in Hell?" > > It was late in December, 1825, before General Perkins had completed his > plans, filled the townsite plat at Ravenna, county seat of Portage > County, in which Akron then lay. > > A city was born. > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > Next Tid Bits 17. > > > > > ==== OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List ==== > Homepage for this list is http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/ohfootsteps.html > The emails from marce@gru.net are automated from the OHBMD Project. See the page http://bmdproject.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?st=OH&t=M for details. > ______________________________ ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 04:19:34 -0500 From: "Ohio Archives EV1" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <130801c5369b$ebbe3870$0300a8c0@margaret> Subject: Fw: The John U.Rickenbacher family of Columbus, Ohio Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Maryfrances Stewart" To: Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 6:11 PM >From "A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, 1918. Vol.3, pp.159-60" WILLIAM J. RICKENBACHER "The real estate businessman conducted under the name of William J. Richenbacker has gone hand in hand with the development of Topeka for a number of years, and undoubtedly has contributed as largely toward the advantageous disposal of property and the honorable and satisfactory placing of loans as any concern of the kind in the city. Mister Richenbacher is one of the city's mos foremost realty men, and while his name necessarily is associated with one of the early families of Topeka, his success is self-made and in its scope and usefulness directs attention to qualities of perserverenc, business integrity and ability and high regard for the welfare of the community. "John U. Rickenbacher, the grandfather of William J. Rickenbacher, was born in Switzerland, in 1818, and came to the United States in 1846. Here he joined the United States Army and went with the forces of General Scott to Vera Cruz, Mexico. He was slightly wounded by a Mexican musketball, which passed through the rim of his ear, and a few days later, at the storming of the Pueblo, received a much more severe wound. Whe peace was declared he returned to Ohio with his regiment and was mustered out of service with his honorable discharge. Several years thereafter, in 1849, he was married and he and his wife became the parents of four children: William, Albert, who is a retired banker of Columbus, Ohio, Caroline, who married Hart Shrader, now a retired resident of near San Francisco, California, but formerly a large candy manufacturer of New York City, and John M., of Newark, New Jersey, engaged in the manufacture of candy. John U. Rickenbacher, after his return from the M! exican war, engaged in the tailoring business, and developed on of the largest establishments of its kind in Columbus, Ohio, which, during the Civil War, manufactured 100,000 uniforms for the soldiers of the Union army. He also became influential in public life, entered politics as a republicand, and was elected sheriff of Franklin County, Ohio, and office which he held for four years. Later he was a candidate for Congress on the republican ticket, but he failed of the election of the Columbus district.. He was an abstainer in a day and locality in which nearly every man used liquor of some nature, and in numerous other ways was worthy of esteem and respect in which he was held. He died at Columbus at the age of seventy-three years, after a long, clean, industrious and useful life. "William Rickenbacher, Son of John U. and father of William J. was born at Columbus, Ohio in 1850, and there received his education in the public schools and the State Normal School. As a young man he joined his father in the tailoring business and continued with him until 1879, in October of which year he entered the service of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, and for thirty-six years has been one of the most valued and trusted employees of the freight auditor's department. Like other members of the family, he bears a splendid reputation for morality, honesty, industry, and fidelity and his long term of service with the road with which he is now connected is ample evidence of his staying and abilities and the character of his ability. In 1871 Mr. Rickenbacker married Miss Henrietta C. Dressel of Columbus, and they have six sons and three daughters, William J. of this review, Albert, who died in childhood, Theodore F. who is manager of the great department sto! re known as "The Fair", Hartman W. who is the city treasurer of Terlock, California, to which office he was elected as a republican in a strong democratic city, Charles Foster (named after an Ohio governor), who is also associated with "The Fair", Caroline, who is now Mrs. C.B. Dodge of Salina, Kansas, Louis H. who is the chief engineer for the Terlock(California) Irrigation Company, Henrietta, who died in childhood, and Grace who graduated from Topeka High School and Washburn College who resides with her parents. "William J. Rickenbacher was born at Columbus, Ohio, but received his education chiefly from the schools of Topeka. On coming to his majority he chose the real estate business as his field of activity, and in this direction has attained a leading place among the realty men of this community. He has been the medium through which a numer of important deals have been consummated and has laid out and sold an addition to the city. He is also entitled to be numbered among the city's philanthropists, for he donated the large and valuable piece of property to the city which has been laid out and developed into beautiful Lakewood Park. As one of the strong and resourceful men of his community he was chosen chairman of the committee which succeeded in seccuring the services of Charles Mulford Robinson, the noted eastern expert, to make a survey of the city. In politics, Mr. Rickenbacker is a republican and has been honored on numerous occasions by being elected presiding officer o! f conventions and other gatherings of his party. A shrewd and honorable man of business, he has gained a comfortable fortune through his own judgement and foresight. Mr. Rickenbacher was married to Miss Francis K. Smith, daughter of E.M. Smith, a pioneer real estate man of Topeka, and they have two daughters: Helen and Ruth, two very interesting and talented young ladies." -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V05 Issue #37 ******************************************